Thursday, August 23, 2012

They're pulling hair on Sundays. On "The McLaughlin Group", they do it with words. On "Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling," nicknamed "GLOW", they do it with real hair.

These may be the two funniest and feistiest shows-Biff! Bam! and Pow!- on TV. They're certainly the campiest. One is a half-hour public-affairs series from Washington-with battling males-usually at 10 a.m. on KNBC Channel 4. The other is an hour pubic-spectacle series from the Rivera Hotel in Las Vegas-with battling females-at noon KCOP Channel 13.

Both are political, preposterous-and just terrific fun! Whether it's the incessant haggling on "The McLaughlin Group" or Spike burning wholesome Debbie Debutante's face on "GLOW." Whether its Robert Novak's reactionary spewing from Washington or Americana wrestling in Vegas for the patriotic glory against the wicked Palestina.

No matter. These syndicated programs are TV at its exquisitely raunchiest, trashiest and tongue-in-cheekiest. Laughs don't get any bigger or better than this.

Like so many other things in Washington, "The McLaughlin Group" is not to be taken seriously. It's a charade, a contest to see who can be the most outrageous-30 minutes of delightful nonsense.

No wonder that, in many respects, it's a twin of "Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling": - Both shows feature a low blows, hollering and swell acting. If McLaughlin and his boys play their tacky roles to the shrill hilt, so do "GLOW" announcer David McLane and his girls. As entertainment, in fact, McLaughlin's and McLane's groups and their verbal locks and headlocks are almost interchangeable.

- Both are shamefully sexist. Only rarely does "The McLaughlin Group invite a female journalist to integrate and freshen its old-boy environment. Meanwhile, "GLOW" is a male-targeted show whose hokey, flesh-flashing grapplers mostly wear skimpy costumes.

Mocking the male-wrestling circuits, meanwhile, "GLOW: abounds in stereotypes of its own. Its equivalent to Commie-stomping Robert Novak, for example is Attache, the Mean Marine, a sneering Ramboette who wears combat fatigues and packs a .45. She's sometimes paired with Corporal Kelly. Their opposite number is blond Ninotchka, a scheming Soviet who projects a pre-glasnost vision of the Kremlin.

How rotten is Ninotchka? So rotten that she, the battle-garbed Palestina (who is billed as a Syrian Terrorist) and that "hot Latin fighter" Spanish Red (who is probably a Sandinista) recently ganged up on poor red-white-and -blue Americana. On both shows, moreover, speed is essential. You have to be fast of foot, to survive "GLOW" and fast of tongue to survive on "The McLaughlin Group." With McLauglin, you talk fast or you don't talk at all.

Actually, McLaughlin and his boys could learn a few things from GLOW about the powers of persuasion. The recent tag-team match between the Heavy Metal Sisters (Spike and Chainsaw) and the Cheerleaders (Debbie Debutant and Susie Spirit), for example, was a rematch of a previous clash when Spike tried to bite off Debbie Debutantes toe.

The rematch was brutal, with Susie and Debbie ultimately over coming the dirty tactics of the Heavy Metal Sisters. Debbie had finished her victory cartwheels and in triumph when Spike- a blondhag- somehow flashed a flame at Debbie and severely burned her face.

"Spike has burned Debbie Debutante's face!" announcer Mclane screamed as distraught Susie Spirit bolted into the ring to assist her crumpled partner. "Oh, nohhh, Oh my, this is a disgrace! Get somebody here, please. Debbie Debutantes face has been burned."

Poor Debbie hid her hideously burned face in a towel as paramedics carried her off on a stretcher, while Chainsaw cheered.

There have been other classic "GLOW" matches, Tina Ferrari and Ashley (T&A) battling Chicago's streetwise Soul Patrol, Sally the Farmers Daughter and Olympia facing those tramps Hollywood and Vine, Matilda the Hun besting Mt. Fiji and Spanish Red versus Little Feather, who seemed on the verge of loosing her bra top as well as the match,

Yet nothing topped the international significance of the recent "Syrian Stretcher Match" between the upstanding Americana and the vicious Palestina.

"This is America verse Syria." McLane announced, as the crowd's chants of "U.S.A" filled the big room. Palestina began by spitting at Americana. Then she bit Americana on the calf. It was horrible. Americana goodness ultimately prevailed, however, as she ended the epic struggle by strapping the battered Palestina into a stretcher and having her carted from the ring.

But not before Palestina again spat at Americana and snarled in the broken English "You will meet me in hell, Americana!" lousy terrorist.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Take Down By Rj SwiftJune 16, 1987Last Saturday, the Pope delivered a global prayer
for understanding.

Big deal. Earlier that morning, Tina Ferrari stomped Spanish Red, the referee wanly hissing "No pulling hair", as the audience fav-sweating through her designer wrestling togs-threw down a tough submission hold and somebody had somebody
pinned and there were multiple body slams and every-
thing you saw was strictly banned under the Olympic wrestling rules and Spanish Red-Central American
revolutionary, get it?-came out looking bad, but not so
bad you won't see them next week, count on it.And even if devotees of ,GLOW-Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling is the programsfull name, got up at nine to watch, you usually don't have to: the station thought the Pope and Matilda the Hun weren't a viable two-fer, moving GLOW for it's usual noon slot. This isn't television wrestling, is proof once more we are a dying planet. Try watching GLOW in Russia, buddy.

The World Wrestling Federation, Rowdy Roddy Dolls, Dainne Keaton gushing about the sport to David Letterman("Oh, have you been?"): wotta crock. "Few Americans industries have suffered so spectacular a decline as Wrestling," 1.A.J. Liebling wrote in 1937, and 50 years later I'm inclined to go with the big boy on that, though
the faddish hype of our times proceeds unabated

GLOW is to today's wrestling what the latest Cult album
is to heavy metal. It's one long corn-fed, insincere action
Iigure drama, it's exciting, and it's about the greatest TV
comic book since Batman. "We actually tried to get Alistair Cooke, but he looked'
lousy in a leotard," says Richard Perin, one of the show's
marketers, about GLOWs obvious debt to public television. "Some people call it action Hee-Haw; I don't feel
it's a wrestling show in the purest sense of the word,"
Perin adds, with a subtle understanding of his craft. It's
been on Channel 11 since early this year, and it's not
going anywhere unless some irate parent has their way.
It started like this: somebody with ideas saw the movie "All the Marbles", about female wrestling, and then un-
learned most of it, envisioning a big future in wrestling
ladies minus all pretense to the finer points. They got
some partners with bucks to back it, including Pia
Zadora's husband, who kicked in use of his Las Vegas
hotel, where the weekly event is taped. Maybe one day
we can look forward to seeing Pia in the squared circle;
right now you get Sylvester Stallone's mom Jackie,
who's the trainer of the bad girls. At least she doesn't
rap, as do the wrestlers from time to time. The matches
are also interspersed with comic bites, all the best materialfound by comprehensive canvasing of cocktail
napkins. Two weeks ago, Mt. Fiji the announcer said was from Samoa, wonder whence that Queens accent-
pasted. a couple of wimps by cornering them and giving
them both breasts dead-on.

Later. the Heavy Metal
sisters took to the ring against three shrimps. The
sisters play dirty. With Little Egypt pinned to the canvas, one sister pulled out a railroad tie and pounded it into the arm of the wriggling belly dancer. Blood gushed,
and paramedics leaped into the ring and took her away.

Not to worry: maybe 45 seconds later, Little Egypt was
back in the ring, bandaged, and though it seems to me
another of her team got blow torched in the eyes, the match was over when the Sister's dirty play caught up
with them. 'they'll be back.

Monday, July 30, 2012

In 1986. the world was introduced to G.L.O.W the Gorgeous Ladies of Professional Wrestling. With characters like Babe the Farmer's Daughter. Matilda the Hun. and cheerleader Suzie Spirit. G.L.O.W was delightful and campy. The cast of characters consisted mostly of attractive young women, almost all aspiring actresses with zero wrestling experience.

Though it wasn't the kind of wrestling PWI covered on a regular basis. G.L.O.W captured lightning in a bottle. The show which combined womens wrestling with vaudevillian comedy skits and musical numbers, was syndicated nationwide and the G.L.O.W girls appeared on The Phil Donahue Show, Sally Jessy Raphael and Family Feud.

But just as suddenly as G.L.O.W exploded into the mainstream, it vanished from the airwaves in 1990 when financial backers inexplicably withdrew their support for the promotion. The girls all went their separate ways without ever having an opportunity to say goodbye to the fans or even to each other.

A terrific new documentary. G.L.O.W: "The Story Of The Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling", helped bring the G.L.O.W girls back together and tells the story of one of the most unique and trendsetting wrestling promotions of its time.

Produced by Jason Connell, the documentary tracks down former GLOW girls like Tina Ferrari and (best known as Ivory of WWE fame) Little Egypt, Matilda and allows them to tell the behind-the-scenes story of a global, albeit short-lived, phenomenon. "GLOW went beyond what the World Wrestling Federation had ever done because of our wild make-up, and our skimpy costumes, and the fact that we weren't afraid to call it entertainment." Matilda said. G.L.O.W was indeed ahead of the curve in embracing wrestling as sports-entertainment, but kayfabe wasn't entirely dead. In the documentary, the girls discuss the company's policies of keeping the "good girls" separated from the 'bad girls" and how GLOW the company enforced a strict curfew to prevent any late-night shenanigans.

Admittedly G.L.O.W wasn't your traditional wrestling promotion. Characters were cast based largely on looks and given cursory wrestling training. But through the shared experience of wrestling for a promotion with national exposure the GLOW girls developed a sense of sisterhood.

When they sit and talk about their wrestling days, it becomes clear that their experiences are universal wrestling experiences—the thrill of competition, the camaraderie of the locker room. the politics, the injuries, and the memories.

In that way "GLOW: The Story Of The Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling" is one of the most honest and touching looks at a wrestling promotion ever produced. The emotional highlight of the film was a reunion organized by Little Egypt who went on to a successful career in real estate.

The guest of honor at the reunion was Mount Fiji, the charismatic 300-pounder who filled the role of GLOW 's gentle giant. Due to hearth problems, Fiji has been confined to a nursing home for several years. Her reunion with her former colleagues and their reminiscences of her G.L.0.W days will bring tears to your eyes.

Unfortunately, GLOW's creator David McLane refused to participate in the documentary. His insights would have added even more depth, but even without McLane. the documentary is a winner and a worthy celebration of the legacy of G.L.O.W.

More info can be found at www.glowthemovie.com. We give it five suplexes out of five. —Dan Murphy
if\it;if\dfvc

Angelina Altishin, GLOW Female Wrestler, on GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling

If
you were a baby of the '80s, you'll know that, while boys went nuts for
Hulk Hogan and Macho Man "Randy Savage," we girls had our own burly
heroes in Sally the Farmer's Daughter and Vine. Yes, GLOW
(Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling) was a groundbreaking television show that
ran four seasons, from 1986 to 1990, and featured female wrestlers who,
we now learn, were actresses, models, dancers, and/or stunt women
hoping to break into show business any way they could.
But what happened to them?

Director Brett Whitcomb takes us into the lives of this tough group of women in his documentary GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling
from the initial open-call auditions, to the grueling training with
wrestling legend Mando Guerrero, to overnight success and global
recognition, and the show's unexpected cancellation. 92YTribeca is hosting a screening of this documentary Saturday night. This includes a Q&A with original GLOW girls Gremlina, Little Egypt, and GLOW referee/writer Steve Blance. Comedians and GLOW fans Glennis McMurray and Matt McCarthy moderate the discussion. We caught up with former GLOW
girl Angelina Altishin, known as Little Egypt, who has since become a
successful real estate agent. Right before she caught her flight to New
York, she took the time to chat with us about being a GLOW girl, life after GLOW, and the touching reunion with the rest of her wrestling team mates.

Village Voice: When did you first hear about this documentary?

Little Egypt: I was one of the first girls to get
interviewed for the documentary. After hearing that the documentary
guys were traveling to Los Angeles to conduct interviews and there was a
chance I might be able reunite with some of the girls from my past, I
jumped at the opportunity.

Voice: You said the reunion process took two years. What was the process like?

Little Egypt: When I got to Los Angeles, I first saw
Hollywood who looked amazing and as upbeat as ever. Shortly thereafter,
Matilda drove up in her van and I saw her motor out in her electric
chair. This giant of a woman with a wonderful heart was needing
physical assistance. It kind of took me by surprise.

Shortly after seeing Matilda I heard that she had been visiting with
Fiji in her nursing home and I learned about how difficult life was for
Fiji after GLOW both physically and mentally and how she had
spent years in a nursing home unable to walk. It was devastating news
to hear, because it was Fiji who encouraged me to try out for GLOW.
She spotted me working in a t-shirt store in a local mall and said I
should give wrestling a try. So I did, and two weeks later, I was cast
as Little Egypt.

Learning that so many women were still missing, I was committed to finding as many girls as possible so the GLOW story and the history of the work we did could be preserved.

The task was extremely difficult. With a handful of contacts I went about putting together a GLOW roster.
I created a Facebook character profile Glow LittleEgypt, a Facebook Page: The Official Page of Little Egypt and a Twitter account as @LittleEgypt so any fans or possibly missing girls looking for any of us would be able to have access to me.

Then I would post and re-post names of girls that were missing along
with what I believed were their real names. I would get leads from the
fans who knew more of the back stories of certain girls better than I
did, then I would follow up on the leads with calls or letters. I
pulled tax records of family members to try and get messages to missing
girls.

I helped the girls create character profiles and many were open to
connecting with fans which helped me draw a bigger online community. I
have found over 40 of close to 60 some odd girls that were cast for the
show.

Voice: What did your family think of what you were doing back then?

Little Egypt: I was 19 when I became a GLOW
girl and I remember calling my dad for his advice, and he highly
encouraged me to do it. I remember him telling me that '20 years from
now when you've raised your family you will one day look back and
realize that you had an adventure of a lifetime.'

Voice: What was it like living at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas with all of the wrestlers?

Little Egypt: Surprisingly, the majority of the girls
got along great. We first lived together two to a room at the Riviera
hotel and later the GLOW house. We worked on matches together
sometimes several matches a week. So our ultimate goal was to work
together successfully so the end result would be the best match
possible. My personal favs to work with were Chainsaw and Spike, the
California Doll, and the legendary Matilda the Hun.

Voice: What was life like right after the cancellation of the show?

Little Egypt: The cancellation was a surprise to all
the girls. The end of the fourth season came and girls were never
called back for the fifth season. No one had the chance to put together
their last match or have any type of going away celebration. They were
just let go.

Voice: The documentary shows how the women had reservations with seeing GLOW director Matt Cimber again because of the verbal abuse they endured while on the show.

Little Egypt: Many girls had reservations towards Matt
which came from their past history with him. For me personally, I
learned how to stay out of the line of fire. I come from a large
Italian family, I get the whole yelling thing, terrifying or not. My
mother is Turkish, I get it! I give Matt a lot of credit for coming to
the reunion knowing he may not be greeted with open arms, but the
friendship he and Fiji shared was more important to him than our
possible reactions.
Since the documentary Matt has reached out to us and cares about the work we did as much as we do. I see Matt as part of our GLOW family not just a part of our GLOW history.

Voice: What did your son think about you being a GLOW girl?

Little Egypt: I showed my son a match of mine on YouTube
about 4 years ago, he was 15 at the time, and he loved it and wanted to
share it immediately with his friends, but I swore him to secrecy for
his own sake.

Voice: Do you keep in touch with the rest of the women on the show?

Little Egypt: I continue to work every year at bringing the GLOW girls together to celebrate our sisterhood and the love and support we have for each other. We reunite in Las Vegas at the Cauliflower Alley Club Reunion.
It's an opportunity to greet fans and to also celebrate the work we did
in the ring with other wrestlers in the industry. This year Lisa
Moretti "Tina Ferrari" of GLOW was honored with the Female
Legend Award for her incredibly successful wrestling career. There was a
huge show of support from our GLOW sisters and Lisa surprised us by bringing the GLOW crown which she had lovingly restored.

Over the last few years, I have become very involved not only with my quest to find all the women of GLOW
but I have since become an advocate of female wrestlers, a spokesperson
and a speaker. I have taught several seminars for young wrestlers
looking to promote and brand themselves through social media.

I'm still very active in keeping them in the loop on what's new with GLOW
and the documentary. I want to make sure no girl is left out and just
because the documentary is 'in the can' that doesn't mean my journey is
over. I will continue to look for all the girls because it's our story
and we share it equally.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Cauliflower Alley Club Annual Las Vegas Reunion Another Great Event

The 47th annual Cauliflower Alley Club
reunion was just completed with a record attendance in excess of 500
people in wrestling’s oldest brotherhood organization. In past years,
Giant Baba, Antonio Inoki, Sakaguchi, Rusher Kimura, Devil Masami,
Chigusa Nagoya and many other legends from Japan have been honored on
stage with plaques and trophies as wrestlers of the year. Mil Mascaras,
Steve Rickard and many others have equally been honored making it an
international event of importance.

This year’s honorees included female wrestlers Wendi Richter, Lisa
“Ivory” Moretiti and Judy Martin as well as wrestlers Mike Webster,
Gorgeous Michelle Starr(who’s primarily been a Pacific Northwest
promoter and trainer), Bill “Hugh Morris” DeMott who had a long hardcore
history in Japan, tv/movie star, animal activist and long time
wrestling fan and friend Dan “Grizzly Adams” Haggerty, 50 year Kansas
City announcing legend Bill Kersten, Al “Mr Outrageous” Burke. Ricky
Steamboat received one of the top top Lou Thesz awards from presenter
and his longtime Charlotte foe Bob “Sgt. Slaughter” Remus and Jim Ross
presented CAC’s top Iron Mike Mazurki award to Stonecold Steve Austin.
For anyone who might’ve forgotten, Kersten memorably called Harley Race
defeating Dory Jr for the belt in K.C. and although much older and
frail, he delivered several of his trademark “helllllllloooooooooooo
wrestling fans!” Harley Race spoke of Bill and gave him his award which
in the past has gone to greats from Dick Lane to Gordon Solie(former
board member) and Jim Ross.

Those who weren’t able to attend last minute but who were scheduled
to receive awards included regular Mick Foley and Charles “Godfather,
Papa Shango” Wright.

Also present were Mil Mascaras, Butcher Paul Vachon, Gama Singh,
Rockin Robin Smith, Melissa Anderson, WCW/WWE ref Mickey James, Sara Del
Ray, Zach Gowen, Disco Inferno, Gangrel, Smashing Pumpkins rock legend
Billy Corgan and his new Chicago promotion employees, and a plethora of
wrestling writers and historians in myself, Greg Oliver, Bryan Alvarez,
Tom Burke, Terry Machalek, and Dave Meltzer. And a ton of other old and
young wrestlers, promoters, refs, announcers, fans and more. Nick
Bockwinkel remains our esteemed president, but it’s being reported he
might be suffering from the same early Altimer’s that forced former
president Red Bastien before him to retire. If that’s true, JJ DIllon
would be the most likely candidate to take over. JJ and Terry Funk
again served as superb masters of ceremony for the event for their third
time. Before presenting the Thesz award, Terry “got behind” JJ and
laughter ensued through the room. Nick looked terrific but sadly never
got on stage to say anything. Being one of the kings on the stick, he
was always 5 star promo-wise at CAC and we hope the rumors aren’t so.
Red’s better half Carol and their daughter Tracy were there as always.
Sadly, Paul Boesch’s widow Valerie and son Joey weren’t with us this
year as Joey always plays piano and sings.

Cauliflower Alley Club was first started as a wrestlers-only
several-times-a-year lunchtime event by Iron Mike Mazurki who was both a
wrestling and Hollywood legend. Until 2000, it always honored
wrestlers, boxers and movie/tv stars equally. Since then, it’s
primarily been about wrestlers but several years back, we re-added the
“Reel” award for movie and tv stars which Rock Riddle helped with this
year. I’ve been the club’s photographer since the 80′s under CAC
co-founder(the late Art Abrams), and we’ve had nearly everyone from
wrestling but also Sly Stallone, Arnold Schwartzneggar, Oscar De La
Hoya, Willie Pep, Joe Louis and actors ranging from Jimmy Cagney to
Elliot Gould. Destroyer Dick Beyer(with a tremendous Japanese career)
is still our scholarship director and Tom Drake and others are on the
board of directors. Many like the Vachon Brothers and Don Leo Jonathon
don’t go to WWE’s Hall of Fame but they always try to make Cauliflower
Alley as well as the Iowa and New York wrestling museums/halls of fame.
Previous presidents have included Lou Thesz and boxing legend Archie
Moore. Jim Ross was so topical, the day Dick Clark died, he said “well,
the honor of the world’s oldest teenager will now fall onto Jerry
Lawler’s shoulders!” Other bits of JR brilliance include him telling
those who call matchs to “don’t just say it. That’s too obvious to call
what it is. Don’t say what it is, but what it MEANS!” He also said
he rarely does prep and doesn’t like to know what’s happening in
advance, because then he can call it more realistically, more
naturally. If you’ve not heard his brilliant stories about babysitting
former great OK/LA promoter Leroy McGuirk towards the end, you’re really
missing out. Jim Ross remains sports treasure.

There were some great seminar class events this year capped with Jim
Ross’ 2 hour+ spectacular which was to be on “What WWE is looking for in
wrestlers” but quickly evolved into some great Bill Watts and Jim
Cornette stories. Former Glow lady wrestling star Angelica “Little
Egypt” Altishin set a record for most consequitive years leading some
great business and social media classes for wrestlers which were all
rated 5 stars. Kizarney/Sinn Bodi had a superb class in how to develop
one’s personality. The first of the three nights had a major
international show of talent from all over that’s the standard for CAC,
promoted by wrestler/promoter/trainer Billy Blade who’s a West Coast
young legend. Traditional Championship Wrestling was well represented
and Brian Blair was the first entrant who pulled a Flair almost lasting
nearly till the very end of the battle royal(mostly young guys) when
Rock Riddle snuck in at the last minute and helped toss old Florida
rival Blair out to win the first cup trophy given at a CAC wrestling
event. Zach Gowen, who has a book coming out with my radio hosting
partner Evan Ginzburg(legendsradio.net for archives), is absolutely
incredible and awe-inspiring to watch. What an amazing and courageous
young athlete, first made famous in WWE and TNA.

Back to Sinn Bodi, his
freakshow championship wrestling 6 man contributing match saw a 550
legit pound male come to the ring, a guy dressed up in a tux and er, uh a
Pink Floyd pig mask, a ref who was doing a gay act in what looked to be
a crossdressing cross between a ref’s outfit and a female tutu and
more. Sinn/Kiz really is a great, great wrestler who I believe was
broken in by and inspired by his mentor Jake Roberts(who was missing
from CAC this year). Howard Brody from what is today’s NWA as well as
many time current NWA champ Adam Pierce was at CAC including many of
APW’s talents like former Tough Enough(Austin/DeMott group last year)
winner who came in 3rd in AJ Kirsch who really should be wrestling for
one of the bigs right now.